Door Strikes for Dummies

door latch strike plate

Many of the DotD nominees our staffers turn up are just ordinary people who figured they could make a few bucks writing for some website that would either pay them a flat fee or royalties for their work. We have no problem with that, as long as those ordinary people shared their experience or knowledge or if, in a few cases, they perform quality research at authoritative resources. On the other hand we have the ones who perform a perfunctory copy-reword-paste on a topic about which they know nothing and move on: they're the ones who get awards... The ones like English BA Alec Preble, who visited "Repositioning a Strike Plate"¹ on eHow.com.

Already a three-time winner (including another about doors), Preble's work caught our eye because it was obvious that he was winging it. For starters, Alec babbled about why you might need to do this:

"If the strike plate is crooked or the mounting screws become loose, the door may stick, the lock may not engage and the door may not close all the way. Unless the door frame is damaged, fixing the problem typically only requires removing and adjusting the placement of the strike plate."

We won't argue much about that, though 1) we aren't certain about how a strike plate would suddenly become "crooked" and 2) loose screws don't mean that the strike plate needs to be repositioned, which is the whole point.

Stuck on the "loose screws" problem, Alec tells his readers, "Remove the strike plate trim screws with a Phillips screwdriver and remove the plate. Purchase replacement screws one size larger than the originals. They will still fit through the screw holes in the plate but will catch in the smaller hole in the wood in the event the original screws no longer tighten." Umm, sorry, Alec, that's not a reposition, that's a tighten. Besides, the "use bigger screws" method is pretty much the definition of a half-assed repair. You can find much better methods on one of our sister blogs. Anyway, once Preble gets to actual repositioning instructions, he gets utterly lost...

"Mark the center of the screw holes if the plate has moved too far to use the existing holes. Fit an electric drill with a bit one size smaller than the strike plate mounting screws and drill a pilot hole through each mark... Remove the original screws and replace them with the larger size if the original screws feel loose."

Fist, dude, drill bits and screws don't have matching "sizes" so "a bit one size smaller than the... screws" makes no sense. Second, If you do need to drill new holes, they're going to be so close to the old ones that the holding power of the door jamb will be compromised. That, dear Alec, is something you should have mentioned...


...but he didn't. We suspect the reason is because he had no earthly idea what he was talking about. Yes, it's a fairly simple process, but it requires more thought than Preble gave it – so we're giving him another Dumbass of the Day award for his lack of effort.

[Note: though Preble never mentioned it, the first thing to do if the strike plate is out of alignment is to check for a loose hinge, especially at the top of the door...]

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_12285396_repositioning-strike-plate.html

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